Noël Carroll (2005)

Noel Carroll (born December 25, 1947, in Far Rockaway, New York City) is an American philosopher and a leading figure in the contemporary philosophy of art. In 2016 in ''Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog'', Carroll was ranked sixth in a list of the Best Anglophone Philosophers of Art post-1945.  In addition to his work in the philosophy of art, Carroll also works in the philosophies of particular artforms, including literature, painting, theater, dance and, most notably, cinema and television where he is a prominent proponent of cognitive theories of the moving image.  In addition, he has contributed to the theory of media, the philosophy of history, and the philosophy of the emotions.  Carroll has also worked as a journalist and has written five documentary motion pictures.  Since 2007, he has held the position of Distinguished Professor in the philosophy program at the CUNY Graduate Center.

Education

Carroll originally graduated from Hofstra University in 1969 with a Bachelor of Arts, majoring in philosophy. He gained three Master of Arts in Philosophy, Cinema Studies and Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh, New York University and the University of Illinois Chicago, respectively. During his tenure at New York University, he also completed his PhD of the title: "An In-Depth Analysis of Buster Keaton's ''The General''".

He later completed another PhD from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1983.

Career

Carroll holds two PhDs, one in cinema studies and the other in philosophy. From 1972 to 1988, he worked as a journalist covering film, theater, performance, and fine art for publications such as the ''Chicago Reader'', ''Artforum'', '' In These Times'', ''Dance Magazine'', ''SoHo Weekly News,'' and ''The Village Voice''. Many of these early articles have been collected in his 2011 book ''Living in an Artworld''. He has also written five documentaries.

Carroll has taught philosophy in a range of academic settings in the U.S. and abroad. Since 2007, he has been based at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York as Distinguished Professor. Earlier, he held named professorships at Temple University and the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and has also spent time teaching at institutions such as the University of Auckland, Cornell, Wesleyan, and Columbia.

Philosophical works

One of Carroll's most well-known books is ''The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart'' (1990). It is an examination of the aesthetics of horror fiction (in novels, stories, radio and film).

In ''A Philosophy of Mass Art'' (1998), Carroll offered a defense of mass-produced art forms such as cinema, radio, and television. In ''On Criticism'' (2009), he presented a theory of art criticism and argued for its objectivity.

His 2022 work, ''Classics in the Western Philosophy of Art'', examines key figures in the Western philosophical tradition, including Plato, Aristotle, Hutcheson, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Tolstoy, and Clive Bell, offering commentary on their contributions to aesthetics.

Carroll has contributed to, while also sometimes initiating, a number of discussions in the contemporary philosophy of art . These include the definition of art, moderate actual intentionalism, moderate moralism, the content-based approach to aesthetic experience, a purpose-driven model of art criticism, the characterization of aesthetic appreciation as a form of evaluative judgment, a definition of mass art, and arguments in support of the cognitive value of art.

His work also addresses topics such as philosophizing through artworks, anti-autonomism, the nature of the avant-garde, the ethics of racist humor, the relationship between art and emotion and mood, narrative and fiction, medium-specificity in criticism, and the interplay between art and ideology.

Theory of the Moving Image

Carroll’s best-known book in this area of inquiry is his criticism of Marxist/Psychoanalytic film theory which book was entitled ''Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory'' (1988). His book helped set the stage for the resurgence of the cognitive study of the moving image. Carroll also co-edited a book with David Bordwell called ''Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies'' (1996) which challenged grand unified theories of cinema, such as Marxist/Psychoanalytic film theory, in favor of middle-level research.

In addition to his general contribution to the emergence of cognitivist approaches to the study of the moving image, Carroll has offered theories of, among other things, suspense, point-of-view editing, the documentary, the image of women in film, the representation of race and ethnicity, film genres, the evaluation of motion pictures, and cinema style.

Books about Carroll

Two academic monographs have been published focusing on Noel Carroll's philosophical work. ''Noel Carroll'' by Hae-Won Lee (Communication Books, 2017) offers an introduction to Carroll's theories of art, narrative, and media, and was published in Korean. ''Noel Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture'' by Mario Slugan (Bloomsbury Academic, 2019) examines Carroll's influence on the philosophy of film and aesthetics, situating his work within broader debates in analytic philosophy and popular culture.

Awards

* American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellowship (2025)
* Guggenheim Fellowship (2002)
* Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Graduate Center, City University of New York (2007–Present)
* Danforth Fellowship (1969–1975)
*Filderman Award in Philosophy, Hofstra University (1967–1969)

Selected publications

Carroll is the author of more than two hundred articles and other works:

Books

*''Philosophical Problems of Classical Film Theory'', Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988.
*''Mystifying Movies: Fads and Fallacies in Contemporary Film Theory'', New York, Columbia University Press, 1988.
*''The Philosophy of Horror, or Paradoxes of the Heart'', New York, Routledge, 1990.
*''Theorizing the Moving Image'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996.
*''A Philosophy of Mass Art'', New York, Oxford University Press, 1998.
*''Interpreting the Moving Image'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
*''Philosophy of Art: A Contemporary Introduction'', New York, Routledge, 1999.
*''Beyond Aesthetics: Philosophical Essays'', Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
*''Engaging the Moving Image'', New Haven, Yale University Press, 2003.
*''Comedy Incarnate: Buster Keaton, Physical Humour and Bodily Coping'', Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
*''The Philosophy of Motion Pictures'', Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2008.
*''On Criticism'', London, Routledge, 2009.
*''Art in Three Dimensions'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2010.
*''Living in an Artworld: Reviews and Essays on Dance, Performance, Theater, and the Fine Arts in the 1970s and 1980s'', Louisville, KY: Chicago Spectrum Press, 2012.
*''Humour: A Very Short Introduction'', Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2014.
*''Carroll on Theatre'' (Beijing, China: SDX Joint Publishing Company, 2019).
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*''Movie-Made Philosophy: In Defense of the Possibility  of Philosophizing through Films'' (Teheran, Iran: Niloofar Publisher, 2024).
*''Philosophy and the Moving Image,'' Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020.
*''Arthur Danto's Philosophy of Art: Essays'', Boston, Brill, 2021.
*''Classics in Western Philosophy of Art,'' Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Company, 2022.

Edited volumes

*''Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies'' (edited with David Bordwell), Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1996.
*''Theories of Art Today'', Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2000.
*''Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures'' (edited with Jinhee Choi), Malden, Blackwell Publishing, 2006.
*''Philosophy in the Twilight Zone'' (edited with Lester Hunt), Oxford, Blackwell, 2009.
*''The Poetics, Aesthetics and Philosophy of Narrative'' (edited with an introduction by Noël Carroll), Oxford, Blackwell, 2009.
*''Narrative, Emotion, and Insight'', with John Gibson. Penn State University Press, 20011.
*''Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Literature'', with John Gibson, Routledge, 2016.
*''The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures'' '','' with Laura T. Di Summa, Shawn Loht, Palgrave macmillan, 2019.
*''The Routledge Companion to the Philosophies of Painting and Sculpture'', with Jonathan Gilmore, Routledge, 2023.

Selected articles

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*Carroll, Noel (2019). “Medium Specificity.” ''The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Film and Motion Pictures'', Palgrave macmillan, 29-47

See also

* American philosophy
* List of American philosophers

References

Sources

* Mario Slugan, ''Noël Carroll and Film: A Philosophy of Art and Popular Culture''. Bloomsbury, 2019.

External links

Phil Papers

Carroll's archive on the CUNY Philosophy Commons
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